Barlov climbed down from the cab, already making a list of the tools and spare parts he would need for the task. Pipe brush, prime scrapper... He patted the deep red and green metal flank as he headed towards the side room, holding the maintenance equipment. At more than 25 meters between its buffers and a height of two men and then some, the state-of-the-art TEL-158 pretty much filled the maintenance hall, with its affixed coal car still half outside. A beauty. Reliable, too. She deserved better than this!

He saw the kid when he came back with the scrapper under his arm and the wound-up pipe brush slung over his shoulder. A boy, five or six years old, stood in the trackbed behind No. 2's large driving wheels. 
     "Hello," Barlov called, receiving no answer. What he could see of the boy's black clothes looked similar to training fatigues. Probably an officer's brat, escaped from his daily chores, he thought. Though the blond hair spoke against that. Anyway, the maintenance hall wasn't a place for kids. "What's your name?" 
     Again no answer. If at all, the kid dug deeper into the shadows. So much for getting him off the tracks. 
     "Don't you know that you should be in the cab not below it?" Barlov asked, nodding up at the locomotive. The boy's eyes darted up at the wide underbelly of the giant machine over his head, before returning to Barlov, who hid a smile, thinking of this own sons. The kid was probably no older than Marik. "Shall I show you how she works?" he offered in another attempt to lure the boy off the tracks. 
     That earned him a hesitant nod. 
     Quiet kid, Barlov thought, holding out his hand to give the boy a shove up the ladder. "Come. I'll help–" The child climbed the wide rungs effortlessly. 
     "You're quite a monkey, aren't you?" Barlov laughed when the boy looked down at him from the cab, before he even had his foot on the first rung. "My eldest, Sevastian, didn't make it until he was at least two heads taller than you," he told the boy, while he climbed up with his load of tools. He only wished Sev's grades had been well enough for a career in engineering. Railway engineer was a lot less dangerous than navy private these days. He frowned. The boy had vanished from sight at his words. Barlov hurried to climb in. 
     The kid stood in front of the open firebox, sticking his head into the black interior. 
     "Be careful!" Barlov called out, but the head that whirled back at him was already darkened with soot. "I haven't cleaned it out yet." 
     The boy's parents would have a fit, but then, they'd left their child unsupervised, hadn't they? Barlov put scraper and pipe brush down for the moment. "That's the firebox," he explained. "It heats the water in the boiler up front that makes the steam driving this beauty." He patted the metal wall. 
     "It's cold." 
     So the boy could speak. "Yes," Barlov smiled. "That's because we're here to clean her back to shining gleam, inside and out. You can't do that with the engine still hot and under steam." 
     The boy cocked his head, studying him inquisitively. "Cleaning?" he asked. 
     "Cleaning," Barlov confirmed. "And that means we can look at all the stuff you can't get near when she's running." 

"You see, the blastpipe sends the exhaust steam up the chimney." Barlov explained to the kid, who was listening with bright eyes. He indicated the thick pipe running up between the front axle. "It creates a draught on the fire when the machine's running, so that the fire won't go out from lack of air." 
     "And when it's stopped at a station?" the boy asked.